Yakima CBX Solar Rooftop Cargo Box - Solar Panel - 16 Cubic Ft - Black

Video Transcript for Yakima CBX Rooftop Cargo Box Review Y66FR

Hi, everyone, it's Evangeline here at etrailer, and today we'll be taking a look at our Yakima CBX 16 cubic feet Rooftop Cargo Box, right here at etrailer.com. So you're ready for adventure, you're ready to hit the road, but you might have some cargo with you so whether they are skis, snowboards, suitcases, or just other items that you want to bring for your adventures, where do you put all of that You do have different options, you can put it inside your vehicle, but what if they get money with, they get dirty You don't want those inside of your vehicle. You can put them in a rooftop cargo box, just like this. So there's roof baskets, which are open to the elements, and there's rooftop cargo boxes, which are closed. So we'll take a look at this cargo box, take a look at this different features, how it works, how it installs, and how much cargo can you put inside a box like this So stay tuned for that. So the Yakima CBX comes in two sizes.

What we have is the smaller size which is 16 cubic feet. I say that as if it's smaller, but it's also a pretty big box. If you still need more cargo space though, you can get the 18 cubic feet box which is a little bit longer. You also have the option to get the 16 cubic feet one with a solar panel on top. That's a whole different type of cargo box.

If you're interested in that, we have a pretty good review video here at etrailer.com So first off, let's talk about the box. Is it sturdy, will it protect my cargo Well, this is made of an ABS plastic, which is durable, strong, and will help out with the rain coming down. You also have this automotive finish so that's gonna be scratch resistant. So as you can see, as I scratch at it, we don't really see anything happening which is good. Now this is a large box that weighs 51 pounds so you will have to be mindful of that when you do load it up with your cargo, just to not overweigh the actual roof weight capacity of your vehicle.

But you have a lot of box with a lot of space. Let's open it up. So if I want to grab something real quick from my cargo box, I actually get to choose which side I want to grab it from. So if you want to organize your things like accessible things on the passenger side and more difficult to reach things on the driver's side, you can do so. So you have your keys here, you just insert the keys, turn them to unlock, pull this latch, and they'll release the cargo box lid.

So lifting this up, most of the force is just from releasing that latch and in the first thing, but once you get it up there, the hinge catches and keeps it in the upright position. You can also access it from the other side. Now just remember, if you do want to access the other side, you will have to fully latched down one side and remove the keys before you go over to the other side. So leaving with a box, we have these keys here, you get two keys, you have two lock cores. If you have other Yakima accessories, you can switch out the lock cores to utilize the Same Key System. And then when you do open it, one thing I recommend doing is just making sure you have enough clearance on each side as well as hatch clearance in the back. So your actual space of your box is gonna be an exterior dimension of 83 inches long. So centering this on your vehicle, figuring out the easiest way to get up on there, could be tricky but practice makes perfect. And then when you close it again and you lock it and you're ready to hit the road, you might have some other questions like what if it rains, will my stuff stay dry, how aerodynamic is this box So let's take a look at that first. So, we have these lifts on the side of the box, I really liked the way they're designed because, see how much overhang you have over each other This is lift downwards, and then you have another layer on top of that. So when you do get water coming down, it just slides up, and if you have water coming up, it hits this spot over here and then goes back down. As for how aerodynamic it is, well, you are carrying around the box on your roof so you're still gonna see a decrease in MPG so you're gonna have some wind drag but notice how low profile this is. I've seen other boxes that are a lot bulkier. So the height of this box is gonna be 14 1/2 inches tall, so that will limit some of the items you can carry inside of the box, but it will help greatly with that wind drag and wind noise. Quick question, what kind of roof rack do you have on your vehicle Because that's gonna change how this box fits on top of your vehicle. So here we have a low profile Rhino-Rack Roof Rack that connects to the raised rails. It doesn't sit that high up off the vehicle, but we have some decent overhang. So this is gonna be 38 inches wide. If you do have plenty of overhang, you can actually have this mounted to your overhang or you want to see a little bit closer to the center if you want to access it on both sides. You can keep it on the center, it is up to you, but that measurement will help you out with figuring how much space do you have for your roof box. Another thing, speaking of space, look at how close it gets to our rails here. See where it sits on the crossbars and then see where it drops down. Well, we have raised rails here so if it went any closer down, we could have hit the rails. So this is at 1 1/4 inches from the crossbar to the actual bottom of the box. That's also how low your clamps are gonna sit, the ones that go around your crossbar. So if you have less than 1 1/4 of clearance between the top of your crossbars and the top of your roof, that's something definitely worth thinking about. But with the roof box on your roof, can you still open your hatch So here's how I measure it, first, is gonna be their crossbar spread you can have. That's gonna be 24 inches to 36 inches so measure from center of one crossbar to the center of the other crossbar, that's gonna be your crossbar spread. And Yakima also has a hatch clearance install instruction where for pretty much every product they have for a roof box, they give the clearance you need to access or to open your hatch, so measure from your front crossbar to where hatch opens. In the case of the CDX 16, you're gonna want at least 45 inches of clearance. So measuring right there, that's 45 inches. Or, you can do what I do, and the method I perfected after trying and failing with several roof boxes in several roof racks is, I measure or I look at right where my roof racks are then I go to the center. And then let's say our roof box is 83 inches long, so half of that is gonna be 41 1/2, so from the center to the back is right where we need it to be. Right there. So doing those measurements just helped me figure out ahead of time if I'm gonna have enough roof hatch clearance. So you can see right there with our hatch open, plenty of clearance for our roof box. This roof box includes everything you need. You have the tools required to tighten down your clamps, you have your keys and your lock cores, but I recommend adding some other things to just to make your life easier. One thing is gonna be the Moki Door Step. That's what I use just to get up over here. You can see how much more height and how much more traction, making it so much easier to load our roof box and strap things down, that's the second thing. These are the etrailer Cam Buckle Straps. They can fit right into the integrated anchor points on your roof box and help you strap down some cargo in case you're worried about them just sliding around. So you see how much cargo we have in here, we have 16 cubit feet of cargo space and 165 pounds of weight capacity. Now, I promised that I'd do a little cute segment about how much cargo we have so let's take a look at that. So we have all of our cargo here. We have our hiking pack, we have our cooler, a chair, sleeping bags, blankets, even our suitcases for our media equipment, and you can carry other things too. You can carry your skis, you can carry your snowboards, but where do you put all of it before your adventure So we're gonna take a look at a little portion I call how much stuff can we stuff in stuff Okay, let's see how much stuff we can stuff into the trunk. All right, and that's the last thing. We fit everything inside the trunk. I don't like how our chairs sticks up because then my view out of my rear mirror is gonna be covered. And where'd I put all my souvenirs now Now, let's get all of this into our cargo box. So as you're putting our bags in, one thing I'd like to take a look at before they're in there is how low profile the inside of our box is. We don't have any bolts sticking up, we don't have any knobs sticking up, so my bags are not gonna get snagged on those loose bolts, or they're not gonna get scratched. This is really nice. So you might wonder why the lid seems like it doesn't go that high. Well, there's a reason for that, it's to help prevent you from putting items that are too tall for your box, so it's just as tall as the actual box. All right, that should be everything. Let's see if this can close. Yep, right there. So that was a lot of stuff that we stuffed into our roof box, but I'm really glad to see that we have a pretty good weight capacity in there. Now we can use our trunk for other items, like our souvenirs, our presents, or our coolers. One thing to remember is just make sure it's completely latched. If you don't see any red by the latch, you're good to go. And don't forget to lock it, once again, take out the keys, you're good to hit the road. So this box is gonna arrive in another big box and it's really easy just to take it out of the box and straight onto your roof so let's take a look at that quick and easy process. So I'm gonna show you how to set up your box to be ready to be put on your crossbars. So your first step is going to be to unlock it. So your keys are actually stored inside the box and they just stick out just enough for you to unlock your box so I already took them out. You just put the keys in and then you lower this latch. And that allows you to lift the box up. Hidden inside your box is the tool you're gonna use to unclamp your clamps so that's gonna be this knob right here. You can actually just pull that knob out, and now you have a special hex tool. So this hex tool is used to loosen the clamp underneath your roof box. Now, before I loosen all four clamps, what I'm actually gonna do is I'm just gonna put the roof box onto my crossbars and then loosen them there. So my videographer actually hopped over here to help me put this box up so we're just gonna grab the box. It's actually pretty lightweight, just more bulky than anything. And then from here, lift it up onto the crossbars. So now with the help of my trusty, Moki Door Step, we're just going to get up on there onto the roof and loosen those clamps. So once you get all the clamps undone, you can then push your box into place. What I really like about these clamps is that they're designed to just kind of move as you move the roof box. So to demonstrate, Scott is over here on the other side as we lift our box over our crossbars and then bring them back down. Right there. So with this now on our crossbars and all four clamps fit around those crossbars, we're now gonna tighten everything down with the tool we used earlier. So this is a torque tool, and what that means is once you've got it to the right torque around your clamps, it will click just like a gas cap. And that's how you know you have the correct tightness and you can continue taking everything down once all four clamps click, then that's it for the install. You can now load up your roof box. All right, so I brought someone in here to help us out with comparing the roof boxes, so if you don't remember, I'm Evangeline. And I'm Adam. So I installed the CBX 16. We have this here on our RAV4. What Adam did was-I did the CBX 18 up on the 4Runner. So we have different sized cars and different size boxes. So let's do a real quick comparison 'cause they work the same way, don't theySame same, man. Pretty much the same design, just differences are gonna be in the size. So the CBX 16 is 73 inches long and-The 18 is about 81 inches long. Okay. So about 8 inches difference. Yeah, so not that much in terms of length, but it depends on what you're carrying. So for the skis, the longest skis I can carry is 185 centimeters skis. And then with the 18, you could do 210 centimeter skis, so really, really long ones with the 18. Yeah, so, I mean, if you also had 185, we could put that in your box too. Exactly. It can carry all of them. Exactly. So when it comes to sizes, the main difference is gonna be if you need hatch clearance. Did we try the 18 on the RAV4We did try 18 on the RAV4, and we did have some issues. We couldn't open up the hatch. So basically,Yeah. if you have a bigger vehicle like me, you can go with the bigger box and still have hatch clearance. But even if you did need to get more space up on your roof, you can put it on the RAV4, it'll fit, you're just not gonna have full hatch access so-Yes, so if you're focused is hatch clearance and maybe you don't have as big of a car as the 4Runner, definitely go with the 16. But if you're not worried about hatch clearance or you have a bigger car, what would you go withWe definitely go with the 18. At the of the day, they're both gonna do the same thing. I like both of the boxes. They all just comes down to what you're planning on putting in the boxYeah. and then what car really. Yeah, if it's a lot of gear, I would just go ahead with the 18, because why not, more space is better than no space, right I like bigger. I like bigger, as you can see, bigger car, bigger box. Cool! So that was a really quick look at the comparison of the CBX 16, CBX 18. I'm Evangeline. And I'm Adam, hope this helps. So my personal thoughts about this roof box was, at first, when I first saw the box, I was thinking, what am I gonna fit this on, what kind of vehicle will this fit on And once we got this on our RAV4, which isn't even that big of a vehicle, I saw how useful it is. I personally carry a lot of stuff. I like to carry a bunch of shoes, I have a lot of clothes, I have media equipment that I want to bring on trips. And this is very helpful, because if I am gonna carry things on my roof, I want to make sure that they're safe, that they're dry, and that I can secure them too. So this checks off all the boxes. You have pretty good hatch clearance, you have your aerodynamic style, you have the Yakima premium features like that lift that goes over to prevent water from going in, and you can utilize the Same Key System lock cores and lock them on both sides. So it is a freedom rooftop cargo box, but you also get those premium features that you would expect from Yakima, so definitely something worth considering. Although, if you do have a larger vehicle than a RAV4, I highly recommend taking a look at the 18 cubic feet box. It's also a larger box, just a couple more inches in length when it comes to the size on your roof rack, and you get more cargo space so check those out here at etrailer.com as well. And where this box really shines though, is gonna be how the clamps work. You saw, we didn't have to do anything, we just kind of slid them on to our crossbars and then tighten them down. So compare that to this clamp system. This is on the trunk's rooftop cargo box which is more of an economical roof box, and you can see how it uses kind of a U-bolt with these wingnuts on top. It works, it secures your box to the crossbars, but these stick up on top, they can snag on your luggage, it takes a lot of time to tighten it down. So just for that reason, that's why I'm super impressed by the clamps on this box. And that was a look right here at our Yakima CBX Rooftop Cargo Box here, at etrailer.com. My name is Evangeline, and I hope you enjoyed the journey..